The baddie pulled by being funny.

There's a theory — unverified, or probably verified, it’s mostly held together by group chat speculation and one very dramatic voice memo from your friend Seojun — that Jang Wonyoung is under some kind of influence.

Drugs, Alcohol, Weed — even though that’s also just drugs — Love Potions, Spells.

They think about what it could be, harder than most people should.

The evidence:

One, she laughs at you.

Not politely. Not the small, social laugh people do when they want to be nice. The real one — the one that makes her press the back of her hand to her mouth and look away like she's trying to collect herself.

Two, she does this consistently. Repeatedly. Without signs of developing immunity.

Three, you are, by all objective measures, not that funny.

No offense.

Seojun has said this to your face. Kindly, but to your face. Straight up eye to eye although you have to look up at him. "You're not — I mean — it's not that you're unfunny, it's more that what you say shouldn't work and then it does work on her for some reason and nobody can explain why."

You have no defense for this because you also don't know why.

Three months into dating Jang Wonyoung, you are still frequently confused about how you got here in the first place.

She is not confused. She finds your confusion funny, which is, as usual, something nobody can explain.

Part One: How It Started (It's Embarrassing and confusing.)

It was a convenience store.

This fucking author and Wonyoung and convenience stores.

That's the whole setup. No more elaborate than that.

You had gone in for ramyeon at nine-thirty on a Thursday night, and she had been in the snack aisle doing something with her phone, and you had reached past her for something on the same shelf and then both reached back at the same time and nearly knocked heads, and then made the obligatory apologetic eye contact.

Then you said, because your mouth moves faster than your brain, "Sorry — occupational hazard of being average height in a snack aisle."

She looked at you.

You looked back.

She blinked.

"Average…?," she asked tilting her head, her lips pressing into a thin line.

"Fine, no," you agreed with a sigh.

And she laughed. Short. Surprised. Like it got out before she checked it.

You have been chasing that sound ever since, which is the most embarrassing thing you've ever admitted to yourself.

And well with her sense of humor, not that hard.

You ran into her again four days later.

Same convenience store. Different aisle.

She saw you first.

"Occupational hazard," she said, without a greeting.

You stared at her. "Did you remember that."

"It was four days ago."

"It wasn't even a good joke."

"No," she said. "It really wasn't." She picked up whatever she'd been looking at and dropped it in her basket. "What are you getting this time?"

It turned into forty minutes standing in an aisle talking about nothing specifically — you still don't know what either of you bought that night — and then she went her way and you went yours and you spent the walk home cycling through the extremely rational thought process of that's it, that's the last time, I'll never see her again, followed immediately by maybe I should go to this convenience store more.

You went to that convenience store more.

She was not always there. She was there twice more in two weeks, which averages out to once a week, which is either fate or a very ordinary frequency of convenience store attendance.

You told Seojun about this.

Seojun said: "You're haunting a convenience store for a girl."

"It's on my way," you said.

"It is not on your way, Y/N. I know where you live."

You didn't respond to that.

"What's she like," Seojun said.

You thought about it. "Tall," you said.

"So basically out your league already"

"Rude…" It was lowkey the truth. "She’s also helpful."

"She’s just being nice"

"She laughs at things I say."

Seojun paused for approximately 12 seconds. "…What."